This essay provide an overview of debates about the method of political philosophy that have recently gripped the field, focusing on the relationship of theory to practice. These debates can be usefully organized using two oppositions that together carve the field into three broad families of views. Call “practicalism” the view that the theory of justice exists to guide political action. Call “utopianism” the view that reflection on the idea of a just society plays an important role in the theory (...) of justice. Call the view that combines the two positions, “utopian practicalism”. On this view, reflection on the nature of a just society has an important role to play in guiding action. There would appear to be two ways to depart from this position: by rejecting the view's utopianism or its practicalism. So we find in the literature three broad camps: utopian practicalists, anti‐utopians, and anti‐practicalists. This essay provide an opinionated overview the ongoing debates between these three broad positions. It touches on the recent cases against practicalism by G.A. Cohen and David Estlund, the comparativist methodologies advocated by anti‐utopians such as Amartya Sen and Gerry Gaus, and systems failure approaches of Elizabeth Anderson and David Wiens. It also considers the recent development of novel utopian practicalist perspectives in the work of theorists including Erik Wright, Tommie Shelby, Lea Ypi, Pablo Gilabert, and Ben Laurence. (shrink)

The evolutionary model of moral progress developed in A Better Ape is nuanced and illuminating. Kumar and Campbell use their view of the evolved moral mind to analyze clear cases of increased inclusivity and equality (at least in Western society). Their analyses elucidate the psychological and social mechanisms that can drive moral progress (or regress). In this commentary, I raise three main concerns about their model: that factors other than social integration are more central to progress; that their model isn’t (...) inherently progressive; and that inclusivity and equality conflict with other forms of progress. (shrink)

This paper develops the concept of epistemic apprenticeship as a response to failures among privileged social actors to perceive the knowledge bases of unjustly marginalised groups as sources of valuable insight. Inspired by Elizabeth Spelman’s reflections on apprenticeship and intersectional feminism, an epistemic apprenticeship represents an obverse form of apprenticeship; one in which socially privileged knowers become apprentices to those who do not enjoy equivalent power and privilege. This paper critiques and extends Spelman’s account of apprenticeship by focussing on how (...) the institutional sedimentation of dominant social imaginaries works against the volitional and virtuous practice of apprenticeship, and by exploring what a commitment to epistemic apprenticeship demands at the level of institutional practice. As part of this discussion, I scrutinise the conditions under which institutionalised apprenticeships may fall short of their meliorative potential, and may obstruct rather than aid efforts to achieve greater epistemic justice. (shrink)

We typically think of emotional states as highly individualised and subjective. But visceral gut feelings like discomfort can be better understood as collective and public, when they reflect implicit biases that an individual has internalised. Most of us evade discomfort in favour of comfort, often unconsciously. This inclination, innocent in most cases, also has social and political consequences. Research has established that it is easier to interact with people who resemble us and that such in-group favouritism contributes to subtle forms (...) of discrimination. If we want a more equal and unbiased society, we have a duty to expose ourselves to more discomfort. Living up to this duty requires an enhanced emotional vocabulary that captures the political dimensions of physiological affect. I argue that a better understanding of what I call interaction discomfort can mitigate subtle forms of discrimination. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

In this paper, I take up the question of how epistemic injustices can be resisted. Miranda Fricker, who introduced the term to describe situations in which subjects are wronged as knowers, has initially advocated an individualist, virtue-based account to counteract epistemic injustices. Epistemic injustices, however, do not merely operate at an individual level but are rooted in social practices and structures. Arguably therefore, individually virtuous epistemic conduct is not enough to uproot patterns of epistemic injustice. Institutional change and collective actions (...) are needed. Recently, Elizabeth Anderson has proposed such a structural remedy. Diagnosing patterns of social segregation that track existing inequalities to be the principal structural cause of epistemic injustices, Anderson suggests that integration is required to achieve epistemic justice. Pace Anderson, I argue that certain segregated spaces —namely spaces provided by subaltern counter-publics— can function and, in fact, have historically functioned as important sites of epistemic resistance. In particular, I argue that even if integration is sharply distinguished from assimilation, Anderson’s proposal insufficiently acknowledges the subversive potential of those spaces, in which shielded from the gaze of the oppressors, marginally situated subjects can assemble and question hegemonic epistemic practices. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This article argues that non-ideal theory fails to deliver on its promise of providing a more accurate account of the real world by which philosophers can address problems of racism, sexual violence, and poverty. Because non-ideal theory relies on abstractions of groups which are idealized as causes for social phenomena, non-idealists imagine that categories like race or gender predict how groups behave in the real world. This article maintains that non-idealist abstractions often result in inaccuracy and makes the case that (...) empirically informed theories and group-based analyses are needed to correct the course of race-gender theory. (shrink)

I defend an empirically-oriented approach to the analysis and remediation of social injustice. My springboard for this argument is a debate—principally represented here between Tommie Shelby and Elizabeth Anderson, but with much deeper historical roots and many flowering branches—about whether racial-justice advocacy should prioritize integration (bringing different groups together) or community development (building wealth and political power within the black community). Although I incline toward something closer to Shelby’s “egalitarian pluralist” approach over Anderson’s single-minded emphasis on integration, many of Shelby’s (...) criticisms of integrationism are misguided, and his handling of the empirical literature is profoundly unbalanced. In fact, while both Shelby and Anderson defend the importance of social science to their projects, I’ll argue that each takes a decidedly unempirical approach, which ultimately obscures the full extent of our ignorance about what we can and ought to do going forward. A more authentically empirical tack would be more epistemically humble, more holistic, and less organized around what I’ll call prematurely formulated “Grand Unified Theories of Social Change.” I defend a more “diversified experimentalist” approach, which rigorously tests an array of smaller-scale interventions before trying to replicate and scale up the most promising results. (shrink)

What, if anything, is problematic about gentrification? This article addresses this question from the perspective of normative political theory. We argue that gentrification is problematic insofar as it involves a violation of city-dwellers’ occupancy rights. We distinguish these rights from other forms of territorial rights and discuss the different implications of the argument for urban governance. If we agree on the ultimate importance of being able to pursue one’s located life plans, the argument goes, we must also agree on limiting (...) the impact of gentrification on peoples’ lives. Limiting gentrification’s impact, however, does not entail halting processes of gentrification once and for all. (shrink)

This article discusses the adequacy of Rawls’ theory of justice as a tool for racial justice. It is argued that critics like Charles W Mills fail to appreciate both the insights and limits of the Rawlsian framework. The article has two main parts spread out over several different sections. The first is concerned with whether the Rawlsian framework suffices to prevent racial injustice. It is argued that there are reasons to doubt whether it does. The second part is concerned with (...) whether a Rawlsian framework has the resources to rectify past racial injustice. It is argued that it has more resources to do this than Mills allows. This second part of the article centers on two Rawlsian ideas: ideal theory and the fair equality of opportunity principle. It is argued that ideal theory is essential for the kind of rectificatory work that Mills wants nonideal theory to do, and that where there is a socioeconomic legacy of past injustice, it is hard to see how FEO could be implemented if it did no rectificatory work, a result which means that there is less need to turn to nonideal theory at all. (shrink)

Is implementing the beneficent nudge program morally permissible in worlds like ours? I argue that there is reason for serious doubt. I acknowledge that beneficent nudging is highly various, that nudges are in some circumstances morally permissible and even called for, and that nudges may exhibit respect for genuine autonomy. Nonetheless, given the risk of epistemic injustice that nudges typically pose, neither the moral permissibility of beneficent nudging in the abstract, nor its case-by-case vindication, appears sufficient to justify implementing a (...) nudge program in worlds like ours. Drawing on Miranda Fricker’s account of epistemic injustice, I argue that the cogent defense of any nudge program, relative to worlds like ours, stands in need of serious attention to its potential for fostering or sustaining epistemic injustice. A more specific point hinges on recognizing a form of epistemic injustice not enough attended to in the literature to date, which I call reflective incapacitational injustice. This includes relative disadvantages in the attaining of the capacity to engage in critical reason, such as the capacity to go in for potentially critical reasoned deliberation and discursive exchange concerning ends. Since Cass Sunstein’s First Law of behaviorally informed regulation would be taken, in worlds like ours, to justify indeterminately many nudges leading to such epistemic injustice we have general grounds for doubting the moral permissibility of this nudge program. We should hence oppose the implementation of any such program until it is shown not to violate the demands of epistemic justice. (shrink)

This essay responds to the criticism that contemporary efforts to redress discrimination and inequality are overly individualistic. Critics of individualism emphasize that these systemic social ills stem not from the prejudice, irrationality, or selfishness of individuals, but from underlying structural-institutional forces. They are skeptical, therefore, of attempts to change individuals’ attitudes while leaving structural problems intact. I argue that the insistence on prioritizing structural over individual change is problematic and misleading. My view is not that we should instead prioritize individual (...) change, but that individual changes are integral to the success of structural changes. These theorists urge a redirection of attention, claiming that we should think less about the individual and more about the social. What they should urge instead is that we think differently about the individual, and thereby think differently about the social. (shrink)

Instead of thinking of ‘public order’ as the type of power that police deploy to manage disorder, this article suggests that we understand it as a set of background affects. The problem of analysing these affects is that (aside from moments of unrest) the majority of the populace is anaesthetised to them. Most people take the public feelings of calm predictability for granted. Crucially, however, the everyday management of public order does not anaesthetise everyone. It also produces ‘suspect populations’, who (...) must remain attentive to its low background hum. This article focuses on the US ‘colony within’ literature, developed by civil rights and black nationalist traditions from the late 1960s. The article suggests that this internal colony analysis contains a nuanced exploration of the spatialised affects of public order; the clouds of suspicion; the atmospheres of tension; and the police encounters that generate an affective substrate of relations. (shrink)

Anti‐discrimination laws draw a distinction between two kinds of discrimination by non‐state actors. Intimate choices are protected even if they are morally wrong. For example, even if it is morally wrong to discriminate on the basis of race in deciding whom to date, marry or befriend, anti‐discrimination laws permit these acts. By contrast, commercial decisions are commonly regulated. I argue that the reasons for regulating commercial decisions also extend to an intermediate case, commercial facilitators of marriage choices. In the context (...) of the caste system, I argue that commercial facilitators should be banned from allowing customers to filter by caste. The argument is based on two considerations. First, this could mitigate the harmful effects of such discriminatory marriages choices in the (re)production of the oppressive caste system. Second, even if the ban fails in changing behaviour, it serves as an expressive goal of communicating the state's opposition to the caste system. (shrink)